Sunday, October 24, 2010

FT.com / Technology - Google admits Street View errors

Google has admitted for the first time that the cars it uses to photograph residential streets for its Street View service have in some cases illicitly collected complete personal e-mails, as well as passwords, from the homes they passed.

The admission comes in the wake of allegations by regulators in Spain and Canada this week that the search company broke local laws with its drive-by data collection. Authorities in many more of the 30-odd countries where Street View cars operate have also been investigating, making the case the most damaging privacy breach to hit the search company.